Tuesday, March 25, 2003

Paths to Peace

One of the interesting things about the road to peace is that there are roughly four paths to follow in our current situation.

To the absolute pacifist, peace means never killing someone else, possibly even if they are trying to kill you. However, if you ask the absolute pacifist if he would pre-emptively kill someone who is intentionally trying to kill a group of innocent children, he would probably agree that killing the prospective murderer would be the correct thing to do.

The second group believes more strongly in the propriety of self-defense, but believes that there must be absolute clear evidence of lethal danger before we go to war. Although 9/11 significantly altered the "evidence of danger" equation, this group feels that there was not enough evidence to go to war, with or without UN approval at this time.

The third group believes that there is significant "evidence of danger", but we must follow a world politic approach to eliminate the danger. This group believes only in UN-sanctioned wars.

The fourth group feels there is significant "evidence of danger", and the danger will not be eliminated by a UN-only approach. This is the group that believes US military action was necessary at this point.

What seems to be true is that all groups truly want peace. But how we will get there remains a point of contention.